Given the constant state of modification, you'd need to take "Snapshots" of Wikipedia and archive them. Say every 2 years or something like that, assuming it continues to be a good resource for many years to come.
And then you'd need to constantly upgrade the archives to the latest media as time progresses, so that you can easily do your research 'digging.'
I agree, though, while many folks don't have access to computers, it's still good insight as to what the "neutral point of view" of a given society is. It's a bit hard to envision, but what is considered neutral now may change with the circumstances of the future.
Discoveries, typically those of a scientific nature, have a habit of changing the way the world views itself. I often read about the discovery of the "new world" only a few hundred years ago. I can't imagine what it was like to grow up not knowing what's on the other side of the ocean. Not knowing what the sun really is. And maybe some day, we'll find proof of life elsehwere in the universe. And that will again change our whole perspective.
But at the moment, we don't have a lot to go on for what the typical person's definitions were of generations past. I think archiving would be a fantastic idea.
Bingo. I'm an Eagle Scout myself (yeah, there are plenty of us) and most people don't realize that there are all kinds of non-sanctioned "patches" that really mean almost nothing besides the fact that you participated in something.
True merit badges are standardized. They're very much like elective courses in school... you can pick when you want to 'take' a merit badge, but everyone has a standard set of requirements to complete before you get the badge. You also have to take the badge from an authorized instructor. They're obviously not difficult, but some have some significant physical and time-intensive requirements to be done.
They're like mini-classes for real life. If you have a kid in the 10-15 year old range, even with no interest in Scouting, I'd recommend the merit badge books as a good "quick study" intro course to something new.
That being said, here is a list of merit badges that are standardized, and the year they were introduced.
Scouts on the local level have all kinds of extra meaningless crap. It's like getting the volunteer award at college. Cute, but doesn't count towards graduation.
Nope, that's dominant factor. Sure, it was one of the better players, usability wise, and iTunes made it easy for people to just spend away... but it was clearly style that put it far ahead of the pack as "the" player to have.
The trick was selling a gadget to non-gadget people. It created a market rather than filled a massive void... where far more people bought the product than probably ever wished they had an easy to use music player in the first place. People liked being seen with it. It was trendy just to have one. It still is, to some extent. People bought them without even really researching other players.
But like cell phones, which were the first gadget to become an acceptable fashion statement, iPods are starting to suffer from feature bloat and quick obsolesence. How many more things can you cram into the 'new' iPod before it becomes something else entirely? It'll start competing with itself, unless they keep breaking...
Obligatory "The Replacements" quote...
on
School Bans 'Tag'
·
· Score: 1
Many fruits are clones. I won't say "most" because I don't know as a fact, but a lot of the typical consumer fruits are. Wine grapes are cloned. In fact, they're all hybrid root systems... roots from one type spliced to the vines of another type. That way they can change grape styles without growing new plants. Citrus is also spliced for reproduction in farms. For consistency and seedlessness, but also for prized varietals.
But unlike mammals, fruit undergoes mutations in its own growth, not just when it reproduces sexually. Some new-growth branches of an apple or citrus tree will produce genetically different stuff, even though it started from the same cutting.
That, and fruits are much simpler and much better understood than mammals. Whether or not it's rational, people have a fear of the unknowns with mammal-attacking viruses and prion diseases like mad cow. Does a cloned animal increase the risk of spreading these diseases? I don't know, but it's something I think the public needs to be assured of.
There are always some people with any given opinion, but most of the people I know couldn't care less if the beef they're eating was bred or cloned, from a moral standpoint. It's not like current breeding is "natural" anyways. It's a science in itself.
I ran SETI@Home before switching to Folding@Home continuously on my laptop, which was mostly a desktop replacement in college, and has been a picture frame for the past 4 years. It's a Pentium 200 MHz MMX, and is slow as mud, but it still runs just fine. It has years of processor time running at 100% capacity, and it still hasn't died. It's a Gateway 2000, pre-name change. But as long as it continues to chug along, I'm not throwing it out. But non-stop processing for years on end doesn't seem to have bothered it at all.
Yep, it's funny for those of us who can think for themselves. But don't forget the people outside of Slashdot, many of whom cry because they simply cannot maintain control of their finances or their own life. These are the people that want the government to protect them from all the bad things, and lobby and vote accordingly. I'd be a lot more liberal if I knew people would still be responsible for their actions. But I know that's not going to be the case.
I live in Southeastern Connecticut, home of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos. I visit both regularly, simply because of the restaurants and other offerings. I don't gamble at all. However, I constantly see the people with tattered clothes sitting at the machines, the mother with her 6 year old sleeping on the carpet next to her at 2 AM. I see the signs mounted on all the pay phones with the free # for the gambling addiction hotline... which are there only after lobbying pressured them.
The average American owes thousands to credit card debt already. I'm not saying it's right, but I'm saying it's a prime example of how people will piss and whine to politicians about the things they don't like rather than make conservative decisions in life. The same people want schools to raise their children for them. And they want the government to protect them from themselves.
You'd be surprised how many people will be happy that online gambling is effectively shut down. And it's probably not going to be the moral conservatives who speak the loudest in favor of it.
*Everything* has a ripple effect on the economy. That's why it's called "the economy" as a whole. You can't expect a noticeable shift in traditional cash flow to not have at least some sort of chain reaction or reactions elsewhere.
Oh, it does. I went back to my alma mater (UConn) in 2003 to see/smell one bloom.
I walked by that greenhouse every day for 4 years to go to the engineering building, but never once stopped to smell the roses. But I drove 45 minutes to smell a flower that reminded me of dirty diapers and week-old roadkill.
I think that's pretty impressive for a plant... it didn't smell its way to survival, it stunk its way to worldwide growth and protection.
People think I'm a bit odd... I have a TON of gadgets, but still don't own an iPod or "popular" MP3 player. The reason: Nobody makes one with both an AM/FM tuner in it. So I still use my Panasonic CD player with MP3 capabilities... as it has an AM/FM tuner in it. I enjoy listening to live baseball (and occasionally other sports) games on AM radio, which is why it's of key importance to me. I realize radio is a secondary feature for a music player, but my stance is simple:
If I'm paying several hundred dollars for a portable player, it should damn well have an FM *AND* AM tuner in it.
Simple as that. Until then, the CD/MP3 player that cost me $50 3 years ago will do just fine.
That's exactly the problem. People in general are a lot more aware of energy usage, but they still aren't educated enough, or motivated enough to become more educated about it. The proof is an every day example: MPG is *NOT* a measure of automobile efficiency... it's a measure of economy. But people still call their car "efficient" or "inefficient" without having a clue of what their real efficiency is. I realize the EPA in the US has standardized tests for determining MPG, so at least the ratings are comparable even if the numbers are meaningless. But people can understand "miles per gallon" so they feel like they really know something.
In the US, we also have an "EnergyGuide" on appliances, which approximates how much your appliance will cost you per year to operate. This is a 3-variable equation: Inherent efficiency/capability of the appliance * utility costs * amount you use the appliance = total cost. But people seem to not want to think... so the EnergyGuide assumes 2 out of 3 variables, and quotes a dollar cost that is pretty much entirely irrelevant. It could be orders of magnitude off, depending on the user. But you have to pay attention and understand this to figure it out out. But people understand "dollars per month" so they feel like they really know something.
In the struggle to dumb down information enough so that people can relate to it, there have been many gross assumptions made. But people can only relate, they still don't really understand what they're dealing with... and until the average Joe comprehends basic energy concepts, someone else is going to have to do the thinking for them.
The next time I hear someone complain that "It costs me $50 to fill my gas tank!" I'm gonna smack 'em. People need to learn that a "tankful of gas" is not a universal unit of measurement, and has no basis for comparison to almost anyone else.
Ditto. After my room mate moved out, I was printer-less. My Dad gave me an HP that he had in his closet for 5 months... but the ink was half-used, and the cartridges dried up. So I took the free printer, figuring I'd get new ink... it had been years since I had my own inkjet, but I remembered they were pricey. But not $80 for the color/B&W pair pricey.
Newegg had a Samsung laser for $120 shipped with a $50 rebate. I got my printer, I got my rebate money back. And now I have a printer that's cheaper, faster, sharper, doesn't smear or smudge, and won't dry up if I don't use it for a few weeks at a time. I can print far more pages even though it's a half-full toner cartridge, and a new, full toner cartridge is *still* less expensive than the ink for my HP InkJet.
I don't miss the color. Sure, it'd be nice now and then, but not for the money it costs. Eventually, I'll get a color laser, but until then, I'll wait.
Not just himself, but the medal in general. It's making mainstream news headlines when I'm rather certain that if he'd just accepted it like the others, it wouldn't even be noticed by the average person reading the news of the day.
But at this pace, it'll be a thousand years before mathmatical awards are televised like the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and all the other entertainment awards. Although they did do it on Futurama...
Yes, but many of those people ruin it for the rest of us by bidding the item up to a higher combined price because they're not paying attention. I don't care if I pay $15 sale + $10 S&H or if I pay $25 + free shipping. But inevitably, some chump comes along and says "Oooh, $15 is a bargain, I'll bid $20!" and they don't notice the additional S&H. And there goes my chance at getting the item at all.
If I can't get the item at a decent discount overall, I'm going to buy it from a regular retail and not risk the auction hassle.
Slashdot Mirror
Stewie: "We couldn't run an ad that said 'No Portuguese' but, um..... no Portuguese."
See above
That's no ordinary rabbit! That's the most foul-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
Given the constant state of modification, you'd need to take "Snapshots" of Wikipedia and archive them. Say every 2 years or something like that, assuming it continues to be a good resource for many years to come.
And then you'd need to constantly upgrade the archives to the latest media as time progresses, so that you can easily do your research 'digging.'
I agree, though, while many folks don't have access to computers, it's still good insight as to what the "neutral point of view" of a given society is. It's a bit hard to envision, but what is considered neutral now may change with the circumstances of the future.
Discoveries, typically those of a scientific nature, have a habit of changing the way the world views itself. I often read about the discovery of the "new world" only a few hundred years ago. I can't imagine what it was like to grow up not knowing what's on the other side of the ocean. Not knowing what the sun really is. And maybe some day, we'll find proof of life elsehwere in the universe. And that will again change our whole perspective.
But at the moment, we don't have a lot to go on for what the typical person's definitions were of generations past. I think archiving would be a fantastic idea.
2 damage! 2 damage! 2 damage! *Miss*
Bingo. I'm an Eagle Scout myself (yeah, there are plenty of us) and most people don't realize that there are all kinds of non-sanctioned "patches" that really mean almost nothing besides the fact that you participated in something.
True merit badges are standardized. They're very much like elective courses in school... you can pick when you want to 'take' a merit badge, but everyone has a standard set of requirements to complete before you get the badge. You also have to take the badge from an authorized instructor. They're obviously not difficult, but some have some significant physical and time-intensive requirements to be done.
They're like mini-classes for real life. If you have a kid in the 10-15 year old range, even with no interest in Scouting, I'd recommend the merit badge books as a good "quick study" intro course to something new.
That being said, here is a list of merit badges that are standardized, and the year they were introduced.
Scouts on the local level have all kinds of extra meaningless crap. It's like getting the volunteer award at college. Cute, but doesn't count towards graduation.
Nope, that's dominant factor. Sure, it was one of the better players, usability wise, and iTunes made it easy for people to just spend away... but it was clearly style that put it far ahead of the pack as "the" player to have.
The trick was selling a gadget to non-gadget people. It created a market rather than filled a massive void... where far more people bought the product than probably ever wished they had an easy to use music player in the first place. People liked being seen with it. It was trendy just to have one. It still is, to some extent. People bought them without even really researching other players.
But like cell phones, which were the first gadget to become an acceptable fashion statement, iPods are starting to suffer from feature bloat and quick obsolesence. How many more things can you cram into the 'new' iPod before it becomes something else entirely? It'll start competing with itself, unless they keep breaking...
From Neo himself: "Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever."
Many fruits are clones. I won't say "most" because I don't know as a fact, but a lot of the typical consumer fruits are. Wine grapes are cloned. In fact, they're all hybrid root systems... roots from one type spliced to the vines of another type. That way they can change grape styles without growing new plants.
Citrus is also spliced for reproduction in farms. For consistency and seedlessness, but also for prized varietals.
But unlike mammals, fruit undergoes mutations in its own growth, not just when it reproduces sexually. Some new-growth branches of an apple or citrus tree will produce genetically different stuff, even though it started from the same cutting.
That, and fruits are much simpler and much better understood than mammals. Whether or not it's rational, people have a fear of the unknowns with mammal-attacking viruses and prion diseases like mad cow. Does a cloned animal increase the risk of spreading these diseases? I don't know, but it's something I think the public needs to be assured of.
There are always some people with any given opinion, but most of the people I know couldn't care less if the beef they're eating was bred or cloned, from a moral standpoint. It's not like current breeding is "natural" anyways. It's a science in itself.
You just need a reaching broom like Homer...
You better hope your boss doesn't read Slashdot
Yep, they all learned real good... except those people who accept an all-stock buyout.
Lisa: "I can't believe 'The Gathering Shadow' was all about senate redistricting."
I ran SETI@Home before switching to Folding@Home continuously on my laptop, which was mostly a desktop replacement in college, and has been a picture frame for the past 4 years. It's a Pentium 200 MHz MMX, and is slow as mud, but it still runs just fine. It has years of processor time running at 100% capacity, and it still hasn't died. It's a Gateway 2000, pre-name change. But as long as it continues to chug along, I'm not throwing it out. But non-stop processing for years on end doesn't seem to have bothered it at all.
Yep, it's funny for those of us who can think for themselves. But don't forget the people outside of Slashdot, many of whom cry because they simply cannot maintain control of their finances or their own life.
These are the people that want the government to protect them from all the bad things, and lobby and vote accordingly. I'd be a lot more liberal if I knew people would still be responsible for their actions. But I know that's not going to be the case.
I live in Southeastern Connecticut, home of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos. I visit both regularly, simply because of the restaurants and other offerings. I don't gamble at all. However, I constantly see the people with tattered clothes sitting at the machines, the mother with her 6 year old sleeping on the carpet next to her at 2 AM. I see the signs mounted on all the pay phones with the free # for the gambling addiction hotline... which are there only after lobbying pressured them.
The average American owes thousands to credit card debt already. I'm not saying it's right, but I'm saying it's a prime example of how people will piss and whine to politicians about the things they don't like rather than make conservative decisions in life. The same people want schools to raise their children for them. And they want the government to protect them from themselves.
You'd be surprised how many people will be happy that online gambling is effectively shut down. And it's probably not going to be the moral conservatives who speak the loudest in favor of it.
*Everything* has a ripple effect on the economy. That's why it's called "the economy" as a whole. You can't expect a noticeable shift in traditional cash flow to not have at least some sort of chain reaction or reactions elsewhere.
Oh, it does. I went back to my alma mater (UConn) in 2003 to see/smell one bloom.
I walked by that greenhouse every day for 4 years to go to the engineering building, but never once stopped to smell the roses. But I drove 45 minutes to smell a flower that reminded me of dirty diapers and week-old roadkill.
I think that's pretty impressive for a plant... it didn't smell its way to survival, it stunk its way to worldwide growth and protection.
98.9 ...with the last digit in tiny superscript, of course.
People think I'm a bit odd... I have a TON of gadgets, but still don't own an iPod or "popular" MP3 player. The reason: Nobody makes one with both an AM/FM tuner in it. So I still use my Panasonic CD player with MP3 capabilities... as it has an AM/FM tuner in it. I enjoy listening to live baseball (and occasionally other sports) games on AM radio, which is why it's of key importance to me. I realize radio is a secondary feature for a music player, but my stance is simple:
If I'm paying several hundred dollars for a portable player, it should damn well have an FM *AND* AM tuner in it.
Simple as that. Until then, the CD/MP3 player that cost me $50 3 years ago will do just fine.
That's exactly the problem. People in general are a lot more aware of energy usage, but they still aren't educated enough, or motivated enough to become more educated about it. The proof is an every day example: MPG is *NOT* a measure of automobile efficiency... it's a measure of economy. But people still call their car "efficient" or "inefficient" without having a clue of what their real efficiency is. I realize the EPA in the US has standardized tests for determining MPG, so at least the ratings are comparable even if the numbers are meaningless. But people can understand "miles per gallon" so they feel like they really know something.
In the US, we also have an "EnergyGuide" on appliances, which approximates how much your appliance will cost you per year to operate. This is a 3-variable equation: Inherent efficiency/capability of the appliance * utility costs * amount you use the appliance = total cost. But people seem to not want to think... so the EnergyGuide assumes 2 out of 3 variables, and quotes a dollar cost that is pretty much entirely irrelevant. It could be orders of magnitude off, depending on the user. But you have to pay attention and understand this to figure it out out. But people understand "dollars per month" so they feel like they really know something.
In the struggle to dumb down information enough so that people can relate to it, there have been many gross assumptions made. But people can only relate, they still don't really understand what they're dealing with... and until the average Joe comprehends basic energy concepts, someone else is going to have to do the thinking for them.
The next time I hear someone complain that "It costs me $50 to fill my gas tank!" I'm gonna smack 'em. People need to learn that a "tankful of gas" is not a universal unit of measurement, and has no basis for comparison to almost anyone else.
I'd go for lasers on a chip. It's got to be better than Snakes on a Plane.
What, no IPX?
Ditto. After my room mate moved out, I was printer-less. My Dad gave me an HP that he had in his closet for 5 months... but the ink was half-used, and the cartridges dried up. So I took the free printer, figuring I'd get new ink... it had been years since I had my own inkjet, but I remembered they were pricey. But not $80 for the color/B&W pair pricey.
Newegg had a Samsung laser for $120 shipped with a $50 rebate. I got my printer, I got my rebate money back. And now I have a printer that's cheaper, faster, sharper, doesn't smear or smudge, and won't dry up if I don't use it for a few weeks at a time. I can print far more pages even though it's a half-full toner cartridge, and a new, full toner cartridge is *still* less expensive than the ink for my HP InkJet.
I don't miss the color. Sure, it'd be nice now and then, but not for the money it costs. Eventually, I'll get a color laser, but until then, I'll wait.
Not just himself, but the medal in general. It's making mainstream news headlines when I'm rather certain that if he'd just accepted it like the others, it wouldn't even be noticed by the average person reading the news of the day.
But at this pace, it'll be a thousand years before mathmatical awards are televised like the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and all the other entertainment awards. Although they did do it on Futurama...
Yes, but many of those people ruin it for the rest of us by bidding the item up to a higher combined price because they're not paying attention. I don't care if I pay $15 sale + $10 S&H or if I pay $25 + free shipping. But inevitably, some chump comes along and says "Oooh, $15 is a bargain, I'll bid $20!" and they don't notice the additional S&H. And there goes my chance at getting the item at all.
If I can't get the item at a decent discount overall, I'm going to buy it from a regular retail and not risk the auction hassle.